TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia marked one year since terrorist attacks in the United States at church services and concerts, with many in the staunchly pro-U.S. former Soviet republics laying flowers and candles outside American embassies.
      Estonia's government organized an evening concert, featuring American jazz and rock music performed by local bands, within stone ruins of a 15th century monastery in Tallinn, the capital. Prime Minister Siim Kallas was expected to speak at the ceremony.
      Half of Wednesday's 44-page Postimees newspaper, Estonia's main daily, was devoted to the anniversary; it included a full-page picture of the World Trade Center before the attacks with a headline in English that read, "We Love NY."
      In Riga, Latvia's capital, Mozart's Requiem was performed in the early morning as part of a rolling requiem, when choirs in 26 nations repeated the D minor opus at 8:46 a.m. -- the time showing on clocks in New York as a first plane struck the World Trade Center.
      "On Sept. 11 last year we all were deeply shocked," Latvian Prime Minister Andris Berzins said before the concert began in Riga's Dome Church. "Then and today, all the world's honest people stood together with America and her people."
      Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga was in New York Wednesday to attend tributes there, as was Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus -- who was in Washington last year when a suicide jet hit the Pentagon and who saw smoke billowing from the crash.
      The Baltic Sea coastal nations, with combined populations of 8 million, regained independence as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In the years before, Washington was one of the strongest advocates of Baltic independence.

      COPENHAGEN, Sept 11 (Reuters) — EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler tried at a farm conference in Copenhagen to cool fears among some member states that farm costs will run out of control after en expansion of the bloc with up to 10 new member states.
      Fischler said the mainly east European candidates could be welcomed without raising the relative size of the EU's agricultural budget.
      "Within the current frame of 0.43 percent of GDP in the EU we would be able to finance all agricultural spending after enlargement," Fischler told a two-day agricultural conference in Copenhagen.
      "It will not be necessary to increase this share."
      Under the EU's current system of farm subsidies, spending is fixed at 40 billion euros ($39.02 billion) a year in the period 2000-2006, compared with total EU spending this year of 96 billion euros.
      Denmark, holder of the rotating EU presidency, aims to wrap up accession negotiations with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta in December.
      One of the main outstanding issues to be solved is to what extent, if any, farmers in the candidate countries should be offered direct EU payments.
      The European Commission has proposed phasing in direct payments for newcomers over a 10-year period starting in 2004 at 25 percent of what farmers in current member states gets.
      EU countries such as Germany, Britain and the Netherlands, net contributors to the EU budgets, fear the costs of the common agricultural policy will explode once the 15-nation EU expands.
      According to the Financial Times, German Chancellor Gerhard Schrder is believed to have received assurances last weekend from French President Jacques Chirac, that efforts would be made to put a ceiling on farm spending from 2006.
      France is the main beneficiary of EU farm aid.
      Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mariann Fischer Boel said talks about a new agricultural reform will begin in 2004 after the EU hopefuls are expected to have joined the bloc.
      "I'm convinced it's possible to reach agreements with the candidate countries on the outstanding issues before year-end," Boel said.
      ($1-1.025 Euro)

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — A Latvian court on Wednesday postponed the trial of 81-year-old Nikolai Larionov, accused of deporting some 500 people during the Stalinist era, after a doctor declared he wasn't fit to remain at the hearing.
      Prosecutors say Larionov was an official in Latvia's Ministry of Security when he oversaw the forced exile of mostly farming families in 1949, four years after the Soviet Union occupied this Baltic Sea coastal nation.
      He's charged with 150 counts of genocide and faces life in prison if convicted.
      A judge at Zemgale District Court in Jelgava, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital, Riga, was to read 46 pages of charges but instead dismissed Larionov after he complained of dizziness and called for the court doctor.
      Court spokeswoman Tatjana Zemzare said the trial was to resume Monday, when Larionov was expected to enter a plea.
      Larionov's trial, which has been postponed several times, began Tuesday after judges agreed to limit his time in the courtroom to an hour a day, Zemzare said.
      She said he suffers from high blood pressure, among other ailments, adding that repeated delays on health grounds could mean the trial will last at least a year.
      Latvia has convicted three former Stalinist agents since it regained independence as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
      The Baltics, which include Estonia and Lithuania, are the only ex-Soviet republics to have put Stalinist officials on trial for crimes against humanity. Moscow has criticized the trials as witch-hunts that target sick, elderly men.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvian police arrested Russian pop star Bogdan Titomir on Thursday on grounds he's wanted by Sweden for questioning in a drug-smuggling case, according to officials in this former Soviet Baltic republic.
      The 35-year-old, one of Russia's first commercially successful rappers, was detained as he arrived on a flight from Moscow at the International Airport in Riga, the capital, said police spokesman Krists Leiskalns.
      Sweden issued a warrant for his arrest on Aug. 29 this year, he said.
      Leiskalns and the Latvian office of Interpol, the international police body, declined to provide further details about Titomir's alleged illegal activities. Sweden's embassy in Riga also declined comment.
      Titomir will remain in police custody pending an extradition request from Sweden, Prosecutor Generals Office spokeswoman Dzintra Subrovska said.
      The native of Ukraine burst onto the Russian music scene in 1989, during the Soviet era, with a series of hits that popularized home-grown rap music.
      His popularity faded in the mid '90s after he moved to the United States. He returned to Russia in 1999 and has been working on a pop-music opera in which Jesus, Adam and Eve and revolutionary Che Guevera feature as characters.
      Leiskalns said he didn't know why Titomir had come to Riga.